Editor:
The residents of Gibsons (and its visitors) have a reasonable expectation of safe water at all times, regardless of both the initial source and the delivery mechanism to the tap. Unsafe water can strike without advance warning and puts us all at risk.
Clean water forms the foundation of a healthy life, so much so that the UN declared it a fundamental human right, one upon which all other rights are based.
Given this fundamental right, the level of dialogue related to the recent boil water advisory, at least as reflected by Coast Reporter (reporting, editorial and reader letters) seems surprisingly subdued, more so given the alarms that have been raised by many in the past year related to The George and its proximity to the aquifer.
Even the issue of water metering a few years back appeared to generate a more passionate debate.
One wonders if people take their water supply so completely for granted that they are simply not concerned — ironic though it seems, given that Canadians in general, and B.C.er’s in particular, use significantly more water per capita than just about anywhere else in the world, and people all over the Coast start grumbling whenever they can’t water their lawns and gardens due to water restrictions.
Alan Donenfeld, Gibsons
